


Kismet

by Valor



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Eventual Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, Fate Series AU, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, except theyre not gonna smash until like 903859082350892 years later, ok like most of the others die bc... fate au...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22287691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valor/pseuds/Valor
Summary: Felix calls. Sylvain answers. He swears a hundred times, "together until the end"—and he breaks it, ninety-nine times over.Is it worth fighting a war with only one possible victor, if all you want is a second chance?Fate AU wherein Felix summons Sylvain to fight for him in the Grail War.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 60
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's been literal years since i last touched fate/literally anything but here i am, my one horny braincell coming to life. expect lots of discrepancies and creative liberties.

“Maybe it’s a piece from Luin!” Annette guesses. 

They’re surrounded by all the tomes that she has in her collection, which is thrice more than what Felix thinks the average person could ever possibly need—and, if he’s being honest, probably thrice as more helpful than anything he could ever find on his own. He regards the relic with a scrutinizing eye before looking at the picture of the famed lance in the book Annette has open in her lap.

...Really, though, it still feels a little pointless. The fragment he has is just a piece off a spearhead, and he doesn’t even know if it’ll even be _enough_. Is there some sort of size requirement? Does he need more of it to successfully summon a Heroic Spirit? At this point, Felix is so frustrated that he’s willing to give the ritual a blind shot, just to put all this tedious guesswork to rest.

“Or,” Annette continues, but is quick to trail off. “...Oh… I guess it can’t be Olyndicus’ lance. This piece almost looks like it’s made out of bone.”

Felix hums and picks up the relic, cushioned on delicate silk. (...It’d been Glenn’s—the silk _and_ the relic. The embroidered initials of _G.F._ sink beneath the weapon fragment’s weight.) “So, Luin.”

Annette doesn’t look too sure anymore, even if she’s the one to have brought up the suggestion. “Or it could be something else! You _have_ to have a guess at this point—what’s the first thing that came to mind?”

Nothing. (Or… not nothing. When he’d first found another catalyst tucked away in Glenn’s belongings, a part of him had almost hoped it’d be a different part of the Aegis Shield than what his brother had used some years prior. Would it even have summoned the same Spirit? Would that Spirit even know, even _remember_ , Glenn Fraldarius from a war now past?) 

Felix huffs out a breath, and folds the cloth over the relic. “The Lance of Ruin. I guess.”

“Oh!” Annette gasps. “It could be that, you’re right! Looking at it now, Luin’s a little more rounded towards the tip, huh?”

“Yeah. So there's no point in playing guessing games any longer.”

After all, it’s late, and they’ve been at this for _hours_. It’s only because it’s Annette—because of, for; what’s the difference, really?—that he’s even made it this long without rushing headfirst into the whole process, success rate be damned. Felix supposes he should be grateful; only idiots charge into a war not knowing what they’re armed with, after all, and as much as he wants to rely solely on his own strength to win, he needs a Servant to even be qualified.

_Ugh._

“Mm… I guess you’re right,” Annette concedes. “But only because I’m pretty sure now that it’s the Lance of Ruin. I wonder which Spirit is going to answer… do you think it’d be Gautier himself?”

Felix shrugs. “He’s the original owner. Wouldn’t that be the natural choice?”

Annette closes her book and rises from her seat to begin cleaning up. “Not quite. In the cases where a relic has been used by multiple legendary figures, the hero most compatible with you will be the one to come... or so I’ve read, anyway.”

“Hm.” (But he doesn’t ask: what if none of them are compatible? He isn’t _Glenn._ )

Felix rises too, eventually, to help return the tomes back to their original places. Thankfully, Annette’s rules of organization are simple; even with the dim candle lighting and the mess of books piled high on their desks, it’s more physical labor than anything to clean up. The last book to go is the one with the sketch of the Lance of Ruin, and it makes him pause in mild contemplation.

“It’s going to be okay,” Annette reassures, almost as if she can read his mind. (She can’t, but she can read the little tells on his face. That’s probably just as bad—or good. Whatever.) “You’ve trained harder than anyone I know! If there’s anyone in the world that’s ready for this, it’s you, Felix.”

He huffs, quiet and short, before closing the book. “Obviously.” 

What a stupid thing to be nervous about.

Annette smiles a little and makes no further comment on that end. He’s grateful for it. “You still have that summoning circle picture I drew for you earlier, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” Felix reaches into his pocket to withdraw a folded piece of paper. It’s not like he _needs_ it, really. In his mind’s eye, he can still remember with startling clarity—Glenn finishing the same exact circle in the gardens of their father’s estate, Glenn speaking with all the authority and strength of a proper Master, Glenn being enveloped in a white, blinding light, and then: Kyphon.

How invincible the two had seemed, back then.

“...Thanks, Annette.”

“My pleasure!” she chirps, able to eke out that bit of extra energy despite the dark circles that have started to form beneath her eyes. She deserves sleep, and lots of it. “Make sure you call me first thing in the morning, okay? And if Mercie is the one to pick up, don’t let her be all sneaky and _not_ wake me! I’ve put in blood, sweat, and tears into helping you with this!”

“All three of which came from a papercut,” Felix says, teasing despite the dry tone of his voice. His eyes gleam with amusement when Annette puffs her cheeks out and nudges him in retaliation.

“It really hurt!” she defends, pouting. “But really, just promise me!” As customary, the pinky comes into play, slender and threatening. 

Felix shakes his head, ever the image of exasperation, but he pinky promises. It’s enough to bring the smile back to Annette’s face, and that, in turn, is enough for him. “Fine.”

“Okay, now shoo! When we meet in a couple of hours, I want to see a Heroic Spirit by your side!”

“Don’t oversleep, and you will,” is his response, just before the retaliatory ‘hey!’ bids him goodnight. The walk back in the direction of his home is just long enough for him to shake off the slow creep of drowsiness and for the chill to start settling in his bones. (It’d been a warmer night, when Glenn had summoned Kyphon. Spring, not winter; full moon, not half moon.

He tries not to dwell on differences that are definitely meaningless.)

Ultimately, Felix ends up picking a riverbank to carry out his summoning, which is probably only a little bit smarter than his original plan to simply do it in the parking garage of his apartment. It’s a far cry from the gardens, but there’s plenty of space for what he needs, and the cool breeze helps carry away the metallic stench of blood when he starts. 

It feels a little like muscle memory, even though it can’t be. His motions mimic Glenn’s from years back, following every wide arc and twist his brother had done, until he realizes that he’s finished the circle without having to look at Annette’s drawing. It makes him feel just a bit proud and a whole lot strange, but tonight is definitely not the right night to try and process through the weight that’s settled in his chest.

(...Well. If he’s honest, no night is ever going to be the right night to try and tackle _that_.)

With a slow breath, Felix unwraps the relic from the cloth that’s housed it and sets it gently on the ground. He pauses, stares at it defensively as if it’s staring right back at him with some measure of complaint, before he huffs and moves it to lay on a small patch of flowers. 

“...Stupid,” he mutters, partially to himself and partially to the relic. He straightens up and takes a few steps back, and though he _knows_ everything is here as he needs it, he retrieves Annette’s drawing to compare, just in case. It’s perfect, right to the last detail, and… now, he’s out of things to do and stall. Felix makes an annoyed sound, brows knit together in clear frustration, and crumples the paper back into his pocket. 

One breath. Two. Three.

(Maybe a part of him expects it to echo Glenn’s words exactly.

Maybe a part of him fights against that very instinct, because this is a different war, a different relic, and a different man. In this, he’d sworn not to rest in a dead brother’s shadow.)

 _"—shape yourself from the bones of the Goddess.  
Lay your foundations beneath Her throne, a steady weight unswaying against the sea of time.  
I pay tribute to no color, no ancestor.  
But as the Black Eagle flies;  
As the Golden Deer listens;  
As the Blue Lion roars;  
_ _I declare now:  
_ _Your flesh will be bound to my command, and your blade will be sharpened by my will._  
_Submit to the Grail and heed my call,  
_ _You, who would claim this weapon as yours."_

The light that shines is brighter than he remembers. It isn’t gradual, either; it begins overwhelming before growing stronger, _thicker_ , until it feels like he can almost drown in it. Magic thrums beneath flesh and bone, intertwining with every sense he has. But it isn’t like conquest. It isn’t like a battle. It feels more like coexistence, something indescribable that fills the gaps he never knew existed, the holes he’s always tried to dismiss.

Something _drags_ at him, just for a split second, and then—

“Well, that's just a little disappointing.”

—that.

The light fades, and before Felix isn’t _the_ Gautier, but certainly _a_ Gautier. The Lance of Ruin is in the Servant's hands, trembling and alive, responding as it would only to a true inheritor of the appropriate Crest. Felix stares. The Spirit stares back, then sweeps into a low bow.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier,” the Heroic Spirit introduces, as if he's reclaimed a modicum of his manners. He raises his head for a cheeky wink and a cheekier smile. “At your service, Master. I have to admit, though, I was _really_ hoping you’d be a cute girl.”

And Felix was hoping... not quite for this. Or maybe exactly this, if _this_ fell into the category of _anyone halfway capable_. (In truth, he wasn't hoping for much of one thing or another, so really, it wouldn't be fair to say that he was disappointed to any degree. After all, he'd said it himself so many times that it almost became like a mantra of sorts, didn't he? That he didn't need this Servant to _win_ , just to allow him to participate. No matter what happened, he was determined to come out of the war a victor, with or without this Heroic Spirit by his side in the end. So what did it matter if he got stuck with the _infamous_ Sylvain Gautier, better known for his romantic exploits and failures more than what he'd done for king and country?)

Felix crosses his arms. Sylvain's eyes follow the hand with the command seals on them, flitting there and back as he straightens his posture. He's a good head taller and much broader on top of that, but it's nothing to be threatened or intimidated by; regardless of who holds the weapon and who wears the armor, it will be Felix who determines the way things will be between them.

So.

"Let me make one thing clear," he starts. "You're my ticket into this, but not a condition I need to win. The moment you prove to be more of a crutch than a benefit, I'll—"

"Yeah, yeah," Sylvain waves him off. He wastes little time in releasing the Lance and willing it to dissipate in particles of light, looking more interested in having his hands free than burdened with carrying so legendary a weapon. "You can skip all the rules and warnings; what made you think I'd misbehave? That is, unless you _want_ me to."

Felix's lips twist into a frown. (In comparison, Kyphon had been so... dignified. Not quite like a king, but someone deserving of respect; someone who could look at the night sky and see the stars slip into dresses of constellations, just to prove their worth before him.) "Your reputation, for one. It precedes you."

Sylvain smiles again. It's pleasant, and it's handsome, and it doesn't quite reach his eyes the way it should. "Right, that. Well, little I can do about it at this point. Either way, you're stuck with me, and as far as I know, there are no refunds when it comes to this whole summoning deal."

"I know."

"Great!" And with far too much familiarity, Sylvain saunters up to him and slings an arm around his shoulders. Felix almost buckles under the sudden weight of steel armor, just a split second before Sylvain notices and backs off with a little 'oops!' "Sorry, sorry. So, what's first? I'm no mind reader, but you look like the sort of guy who'd want to fight as soon as he could. Well, and also the sort of guy who needs to sleep for maybe half a day. I'm more certain about the second one."

"I didn't ask for your opinion," Felix grouses, even though—because—Sylvain is right about both those things. "None of the other Masters have revealed themselves. Even if I wanted to fight—" and he _does_ , "there's nothing I can do until they come out of hiding."

Sylvain hums and looks around. It's difficult to tell if he's taking in the scenery, or if he can see that Felix can't, until he speaks. "Hmm... well, I don't know if this'll make you happier or not, but I can't sense any Servants nearby. Either they're taking extra precautions to be sneaky, or you were the first one to get this whole thing started. Pretty eager, aren't you?"

"It's a war. I'm not going to win by sitting on my hands and just waiting around."

"Haha, I guess you're right."

Felix huffs out a breath and turns to begin what little cleanup he can: smearing the blood on the grass to break the circle, and kicking a little dirt in an attempt to cover the slick gleam of red that stares up at him. It's hitting him, now that everything's all done, that maybe he should've taken the extra time to drive out to the mountains to do this. At least then, he wouldn't have had to bother with making the riverbank look like it _wasn't_ the scene of a horrific crime.

"Though," Sylvain says, cutting through his train of thought, "Does anyone ever really _win_ , in a war?"

Felix raises a brow, glancing up. "What?"

"Just thinking out loud," Sylvain replies. "These sorts of things always end with one victor, and I'm pretty sure no one picked by the Grail is gonna be soft-hearted enough to let the competition live. You wouldn't either, right?"

"I'd be a fool otherwise."

"Mm."

"If you're going to be sentimental about having to kill, you can leave now." Another sweep of his leg smears more blood along the grass. It does its work in destroying the circle, but now, it just looks like he has a bigger mess on his hands. "I told you, I don't need anything holding me back. If you want to sit around and hide somewhere, I don't care as long as you don't get in my way."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me," Sylvain laughs humorlessly. He steps in to help by cupping the river water into the grass, diluting the mess and softening the dirt into mud. "If you order me to kill, I will. Other Spirits, men, women, even children—it's the oath you summoned me with, right? My flesh and my spear are yours."

It makes Felix pause, looking genuinely disgusted. Children? "What the _fuck_ makes you think—"

"—that you'd make me commit atrocities like that?" Sylvain finishes, and taps the back of his right hand. There's nothing there, for him—but for Felix, the command seals sit, dark and crimson, on pale skin. "Well, I guess I might as well just clue you into it now so you won't be too surprised when it inevitably happens later. Not everyone abides and fights by some neat code of honor; when people find something they want bad enough to put their lives on the line, it's never a matter of _should_ and _shouldn't_. And chances are, you're gonna run into a Master that's too young to be involved in something like this."

"Don't patronize me," Felix snaps, eyes narrowed. (And if he raises his voice just a little? If his words hold a touch more venom than he means them to? It's not about him, and it's not about Sylvain. It's about being 13, rosy-cheeked and ignorant, and learning that dying for some noble cause never changed a damn thing in the end.) "I know the risks and costs without having some sad mockery of a knight tell me about any of it."

"Whatever you say," Sylvain shrugs. There's a little shift to him—not in his posture, not in his voice, and not to his face, but _somewhere_ that Felix can just intrinsically feel, before he continues, "There's no need to get all mad; I meant well, promise. I just wanted to make sure you didn't break down later or anything, 'cause I'm _really_ not good with tears—unless they're happy ones from a pretty girl."

Felix stomps and drags his foot a final time. Bloody mud squelches beneath him.

 _Son of a Gautier._ It's really making sense now, isn't it?

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Sylvain says, nudging some of the mud into the river until it carries the evidence away. "C'mon, we can forget that conversation ever happened, if it's gonna make you so grouchy. How about we get some food? There's got to be plenty of delicious treats in this era, right? Talking to a beautiful woman might be just what you need to turn that frown upside-down."

"You can't _possibly_ be as insatiable as all the tales say." Except that's exactly what it's looking like, and it's hard to tell if the weight that's still on his chest is from raw frustration or sheer _anger_ (grief, trauma, bumpy scars that never healed over correctly) towards Sylvain the womanizing idiot, or Sylvain the patronizing jackass. "Can you try going just five minutes without running your mouth about something useless?"

Sylvain smiles, showing teeth. "I can try," he replies, "But if you're _really_ desperate to shut me up, I'm sure you can think of something more creative." Felix's mind goes immediately to the command seals. His eyes do too, apparently, because Sylvain finds a need to clarify, "Try something a little higher. Oh, or _lower_ , I guess, if you're _really_ —"

"Ugh. You're _disgusting_."

"Mm, I've been told—mostly in a bad way." Is there even a good way? Who even uses _disgusting_ as anything remotely related to a compliment? "So, I guess this is the perfect time for me to suggest we head home, now that you're done playing in the grass?"

It's tempting to kick Sylvain into the river. It's even more tempting to use a seal to mute his Servant for the rest of the war. Annette would probably be proud of him for doing neither, and maybe just a little less so for biting out, "...You're sleeping outside."

"Wait, what? Seriously?!"

It's... a start.


	2. Chapter 2

Ultimately, when the door closes, it’s with Sylvain very much  _ inside _ the apartment, not outside it. After all, the threat had been more or less an empty one; what would the neighbors say, if morning came and they found a fully armored knight just standing around? (Or rather, what would  _ Sylvain _ say that would doubtless make the situation a million times worse?)

So: Sylvain. Sylvain, who stands by the door with wide, curious eyes, even though there isn’t really much to see; Sylvain, who gets swatted right back when he takes his first step, because his greaves are  _ muddy _ and Felix is definitely not going to make the effort to clean up after him.

Sylvain.

“Take those off,” Felix says, standing as the sole barrier between him and all the things that are  _ new _ and  _ strange _ in the world. “Actually, off with everything. I don’t need you following me around like this; you’re bound to attract too much unnecessary attention.”

Sylvain gives a wolfish grin. “ _ Wow _ , Master. And here, I thought you hated me. Guess even a guy like you has needs, huh?”

It’s lucky for both of them, though to differing degrees, that looks alone aren’t capable of murder. Felix levels him with a withering glare and Sylvain laughs, willing away his armor without any further teasing remark. The clothes he ends up in look very much like a military uniform of sorts, all black and gold; Felix recognizes it to be the uniform of the Officers Academy in Garreg Mach Monastery, long since abandoned and rebuilt into a museum. He’d gone twice, when he was young: first with his family, and again for a school field trip.

(Holding his brother’s hand, he’d said:  _ you’d look cool wearing that, Glenn! _ )

“Better?” Sylvain asks, stepping out of his boots. To his credit, he lines it up neatly next to Felix’s own before he steps past his Master to take in the apartment. Felix doesn’t dignify him with a response, but his silence is enough of an approval for Sylvain to be satisfied.

Felix’s home is small, clearly meant to house only one, and sparsely decorated. Sylvain doesn’t seem to care, at least not enough to comment; instead, he gravitates to the television, squinting a bit as he observes it from all possible sides.

“...Huh. Is it some sort of trend, to have such a dark mirror? I can barely see myself in it.”

Felix opens his mouth, then closes it. It’s  _ obvious _ what it is, but of course Sylvain wouldn’t know. (Remember? How he’d stared at the streetlights, the cars, and just about every modern invention they’d passed on the way from the riverbank? They were lucky that no one was nearby to see Sylvain summon his lance, gleaming and alive, when he’d been startled by the sound of a motorcycle passing by just a block down.)

“It’s called a television,” Felix answers. “It’s for watching anything that’s  _ not _ yourself.”

Sylvain makes a thoughtful sound. “...So like an enchanted spying device. That’s not creepy at all.”

_ Completely  _ wrong, but—sure. Felix moves past Sylvain and heads straight for the bathroom, closing the door only with an additional warning of, “Don’t touch anything you don’t know. I’ll kill you if you set the place on fire.”

“But you said these lights didn’t have actual fire in them!” Sylvin calls back, brows knit together in confusion as he looks—just a little stupidly, just a little concerned—at the ceiling lights.

Felix shakes his head, drowning out whatever follow-up questions his Servant might have with hot water. And just like that, it’s not silence, but it’s white noise, and that’s enough for the weight of everything to start settling in. 

He releases a deep breath, tugs off his clothes, and finally acknowledges the tingling in his fingers, the  _ pitter-patter-stutter-jump _ of something static beneath his skin.

Normally, Felix doesn’t take long in the shower. On average, it takes him nine, maybe ten minutes before he’s patting himself dry. Tonight is an exception—or rather, tonight has  _ been _ an exception, ever since magic pulsed through his fingers and knit together the flesh of a Heroic Spirit before his very eyes. His thoughts, then, are of all things and not one thing in particular; each contemplation flits by in quarters and halves, the way they do when he’s tired and there’s just too many things to sit down and really  _ absorb. _

(Things like: the Grail War. The Grail War, except this one is  _ his  _ to fight.  _ His  _ to win.

Things like: Sylvain. Sylvain Jose Gautier and not Kyphon, not even Fraldarius herself, because—

The Lance of Ruin. Not the Aegis Shield. Not like Glenn.

Glenn, who fought— who died against—

The other Masters. Who are they?  _ Where _ are they? If they met, if they fought, would Sylvain—

Sylvain. Stupid,  _ stupid _ Gautier. Stupid—

—but not. How many times had he looked at the command seals on Felix’s hand?

Glenn didn’t have to use a single one. Would Felix have to use all three?)

...Each avoided, unprocessed thought digs itself in ugly lines across his bones.

In the end, twenty minutes pass. When Felix finally emerges from the bathroom with his hair still damp and soaking into the shirt of his pajamas, he half-expects to see his apartment a complete mess from Sylvain’s curious interactions with all the modern gadgets and inventions, or simply for the Spirit to just be  _ gone _ .

Felix sees neither. Instead, Sylvain’s on the couch with one of Annette’s books in hand, looking hardly at all like the Servant he’d been snapping at just twenty minutes prior. To add to unexpected wonders, Sylvain looks contemplative, and maybe even a touch upset. But what about? Felix hadn’t read that particular book in its entirely, merely flipped through its pages when he’d found that Annette had accidentally left it here; as far as he knew, it was just…

“You know, for a book with such an impressive foreword, they sure got a whole bunch of information wrong.”

...a history book. As in, a book that talked about Sylvain and all his family and friends, people he knew and loved and hated and fought.

Right.

“Then don’t read it,” Felix says, presumably a simple answer to a simple dilemma. “The way people are remembered after they die is hardly accurate to how they were when they were alive.” 

What he should add, but doesn’t: some are raised on pedestals higher than any living man can feasibly reach. Some are swathed so thickly in falsehoods and meaningless sentiments that they almost become more myth than memory, more of a symbol than a son lost. Words like  _ sacrifice _ , words like  _ honor _ ; excuses like  _ dying for a good cause _ , conclusions like  _ dying a good death _ ; what do any of them even  _ do _ , beyond erase who Glenn had been?

(...Stupid. Stupid.)

“...stupid,” Sylvain says, and it carries like an echo. “I know. Curiosity just got the better of me, I guess.” Yet rather than set the book down, he fiddles with the page that he’s on, reluctant to move past whatever tale he’s claimed is riddled with falsehoods.

Felix takes a seat on the other end of the couch and leans back against the cushions. “...So? Spit it out.”

“Huh?”

“The thing you’re saying is wrong. It’s annoying, watching you mope on that page—and the actual owner of the book hates it when the pages get folded.”

“Oops,” Sylvain smiles sheepishly, and smoothes the corner down. “Well, it’s just this part—saying the way I got the Lance of Ruin was because the Church gave it to me once they recognized that I was the rightful heir, or whatever.” His fingers glide over the text, gentle despite the way they proclaim his life to have been a far cry from what he knows. “But the truth is, I got it from my brother.”

Felix raises a brow. “I didn’t know you had one.”

He almost misses the strange look that passes over Sylvain’s face, as contrite as it is brief. “Heh. Yeah, well—guess that’s what happens when you’re disowned. Marked right off the family tree like you were never meant to be there in the first place. Kinda shitty, right?”

“Hm.” 

It’s not like Felix is  _ bad  _ with words, not usually; if he has something on his mind, he’s the sort to just say it, unpolished and sharp. But sometimes, they stick to his throat, just like this—not because he’s struggling to phrase something the right way, but because they tangle in a mess on his tongue, and he’s long since forgotten how to begin unraveling it all. 

(But it goes something like this: it’s shitty, yeah, when someone who’s  _ meant _ to be there,  _ should _ be there, just…  _ isn’t _ , anymore.)

“Anyway—”

“What was his name?” Felix asks. Sylvain looks surprised, like he’d genuinely thought this would be a topic that Felix would brush aside. Maybe it should have been.

“...Miklan,” the Servant answers, quiet and low. Even after all these years, he sounds a little like he can’t figure out where to begin or where to end. “Miklan Anschutz Gautier.” 

There’s a sort of weight to Sylvain’s shoulders that Felix can’t quite see, but he can  _ feel _ —not like it’s his own, but just as a vague knowledge in the back of his mind that it’s simply  _ there _ . 

Felix doesn’t push. The expression on Sylvain’s face is difficult to decipher, and he—gets it, a bit. At one point, there were men named Miklan and Glenn. One was forgotten; the other, remembered all wrong. Is it really that difficult to let dead men rest?)

“... _ Anyway _ ,” Sylvain tries again, when he decides that the silence that settles over them isn’t comfortable enough, “Speaking of family, you never said you were a Fraldarius! In your summons, you—”

“Called on no ancestor,” Felix finishes. “I know. I’m not fighting for or through them.”

Sylvain smiles as he rests his cheek on his palm. His free hand rests on the cover of the book, fingers drumming against the hard surface. “Not a fan of stuffy old traditions, huh? Me neither. Who would’ve thought we’d actually have something in common?”

Felix closes his eyes.  _ Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.  _ “How did you find out?”

“Oh, from the letters you have on the table over there. Don’t worry, I didn’t try to read through them; I was just curious about your name, that’s all.”

“You wouldn’t have understood what they were about, even if you did,” Felix scoffs. They were—what, bills? Advertisements to get him to sign up for a new credit card? Hardly anything that could even remotely be considered  _ letters _ .

“Probably,” Sylvain hums. “Felix, huh. I used to have a friend by that name, you know—when I was little. He’d come crying to me for every problem he had, but he was a real sweet kid. Made me feel like I was special enough to help him get through just about anything, but it’s not like it was hard when he was… what, seven, eight years old? Haha.”

Felix remains quiet. Sylvain takes it as an invitation to keep talking, even if he sounds more as if he’s speaking to reminisce more than he is to share.

“Honestly, though? He’s probably one of my few regrets. Or—well, one of my big ones. I definitely have more than just a few.”

Finally, Felix opens his eyes to peer over at his Servant. Sylvain’s busy looking at the book, tracing over the lettering of the title.  _ The Rise & Fall of Faerghus. _

“When we were kids, we promised that we wouldn’t die without the other. Pretty morbid, right?” he chuckles, dry and quiet. “Doubt he remembered in the end, though—or cared, even. It was something we said when we could still count our ages on just two hands alone.”

“Let me guess,” Felix says. “He died. You didn’t.”

“The reverse, actually.” Sylvain pats the cover, and returns the book to the coffee table. “We ended up on different sides of the war. I didn’t see him for  _ years _ , but when I finally did, I guess I just couldn’t... “ he trails off, then shakes his head. He stands up, stretching, like moving around would shake the centuries of contrition off his bones. “...well, doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of women who are  _ really _ into the whole ‘sentimental knight’ thing, so at least I’ve got that going for me.”

The silence that settles between them doesn’t last long. Felix huffs out a breath and rises from the couch with half the intention of going to bed. “So, what—that whole story, just to say you regret not killing him first?”

“Nah,” Sylvain waves off. “I don’t think there’s any version of me in any universe that can ever feel that way. I guess I just rambled on a little more than I meant to—must be the effect any  _ Felix Fraldarius _ has on me.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Or, you just have a hard time shutting up.”

“Haha, that too. Turning in for the night?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay; maybe a couple hours of sleep will make you less grumpy,” Sylvain teases. “I’ll wake you if I sense another Heroic Spirit—or if I get bored.”

“Don’t even think about the second one,” Felix mutters, glancing at Sylvain one more time before he retreats to his room and closes the door. He listens, for a few seconds, in the darkness; he can hear Sylvain moving around, likely still pacing, before the creak of the sofa follows a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright yall time to come clean i cant even figure out which fate series to watch first that isn't stay night or zero  
> he lp,,


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of love & thanks Feroxai for beta reading this chapter for me! truly the greatest hero to save my singular braincell in its time of need. :')  
> also plenty of thanks to everyone who's left kudos/comments! i really appreciate all of them. <3

That night, Felix dreams of a cold winter—and through Sylvain’s eyes, he witnesses a village long destroyed, blanketed in ash and snow. 

He’s 14, and he doesn’t flinch when he takes a step forward and feels the crack of fingers beneath his heel. (Stiff from death, and frozen beyond that. It snaps too easily.)

“Sreng,” the Margrave says from behind him, and sets a gloved hand on his shoulder. “Even to call them barbarians would be high praise.”

Sylvain knows. It’s been like this for longer than he’s been alive: Sreng attacks. House Gautier repels. _For king and country,_ they always say, but he’s older now, and he knows that it’s for honor and glory. (How dishonest—but isn’t everyone? Isn’t everything?)

“In time,” his father continues, “it will be your duty to protect the kingdom and prevent losses like these. Never forget, Sylvain; our service to the King is our military. As the crown has its Shield, you must become its Sword.”

“Of course, father. You can count on me.” 

(...In the end, it’s all just politics.)

Years later, nothing changes. The Empire’s forces spread throughout the Kingdom like wildfire, and House Gautier fights a war on two fronts. The Sreng invaders clamor to take back lands that they claim belonged to them; the Empire lays down its ultimatum, to bow or to hang.

Sylvain fights, but there is no honorable goal in mind, no bright and shining future he finds particularly worth fighting for. He’s sent to the battlefield where his Crest proclaims the blessings of the Goddess in each swing and strike of his lance, knowing only that he doesn’t want to die then and there. 

It’s awful, and it’s tiring, but most of all, it’s _lonely_. Women don’t make much of a difference when the haze of pleasure fades and he’s left with nothing but disgust clinging to his bones. (And he can always, always hear it: _Fill me. Fill me. I want to bear you a child. (That’s what you’re good for. You’re a Crest with two legs, my ticket to riches and fame.)_ It’s pathetic.) 

So he decides to write a letter, when the battle of the day is over. It’s not something he does often, truth told, but he has a couple nasty bruises that keep him more stationary than he’d like, and it feels like there’s nothing better to do when he can hear the men outside his tent talking about the correspondences they’ve received from their families.

It takes a while to start. He spends a lot of time tapping his dry quill to paper before he finally dips it into ink. 

_Dear Felix,_ he writes. _I’d like to wish for things to be going better where you are, but last I heard, you’re about as cornered as I am._ The words don’t come easily. It sounds too formal, too stiff, nothing at all like what he wants to say.

He tries again.

_Dear Felix. Everyone is saying that Dimitri is dead. Knowing you, you’d fight through the Empire’s armies all by yourself if it means you’d find proof otherwise. Maybe I’m being a little selfish, but I hope your search makes you pass through here._

And again.

_Dear Felix. You probably won’t remember, but… Val-d’Coin sound familiar? You visited us there when we were little, and I tried teaching you how to ride that little pony with the twisted tail. Well, the Empire reached us here, so the whole place is kind of a mess now._

And again—

_Dear Felix._

—before he gives up with a humorless smile. There’s no point to it, anyway. What will an ‘I miss you’ change? 

Nothing, so—another year. Two. It’s been five since the outbreak of the war now, and Sylvain hears that something _has_ changed. There’s movement and activity in the ruins of the Monastery. He packs his things to go and honor a silly, heartfelt promise, but he runs into a retinue of imperial soldiers. They don’t fight him; instead, they acknowledge him and assume he is there to aid them in their march southward.

It hits him, harder and colder than their worst winters.

He argues with his father. It’s a pointless endeavor when he knows, has _always_ known, that this was bound to happen. House Gautier could have, _should_ have, fought until it was broken; instead, it bent, and bent, and bent, until its knees were on the ground and its head bowed low before the imperial standard.

_(Did you mean any of it at all, when you told me to become Faerghus’ sword? What good is a weapon that turns on its wielder?_

_Fool. Still just a boy. Did you learn nothing? A weapon used is better than a weapon discarded.)_

So he fights, and he bleeds. It’s draining, to fight a war he doesn’t believe in, but like all things, there is a point where it comes to an end. Sylvain is on his knees, the Lance of Ruin dropped by his side. Felix is before him, bloody and taut; Sylvain thinks about the letter he never sent, and wonders if the reason it was so difficult to write was because he should have been saying it all in person instead.

_Dear Felix. Remember when we were kids—_

“—and we made a promise about dying together?”

_(—I know it’s been a while, and I know you probably didn’t know what you were promising. But it made me happy, back then, to hear that someone wanted to be with me until the very end.)_

“...Sorry, Sylvain.”

Felix wakes up with a start, hand at his throat. It’s in one piece; _he’s_ in one piece, with his head still very much attached to his shoulders. He’s in his room, and the sun hasn’t even fully risen yet.

“What the fuck,” he breathes. He feels like he could vomit, if not for the feeling of his heart pounding and pulsing in his throat.

“Bad dream?” Sylvain asks, and in particles of light, materializes by his bedside. “It’s still pretty early; I thought you’d be knocked out for at least a couple more hours.”

...Memories, Felix slowly realizes, when the normalcy of his room settles back in. No dirt, no ash, no blood; no sound of wyverns screeching, of men shouting, of battle cries and death throes. Just… the dream. Memories. _Sylvain’s_ memories, laid out in bits and pieces, unfiltered by meaningless smiles and an easy wave of the hand.

“Uh, you okay?” Sylvain frowns, waving a hand in front of Felix’s face. He withdraws when his Master swats it away, brow furrowed. “Yeesh; I was just worried, is all. Want water or something?”

“No,” Felix says, but the word comes out strained through his dry throat. Sylvain hears it, and with an almost exasperated smile, goes to fetch a glass of water. “Here,” he says, holding it out for Felix to take once he’s back. “What’d you dream about? I hear that it helps to talk about it.”

Felix considers it, as he drinks. He considers asking Sylvain about his past, about the details and thoughts and truths that aren’t in any history book or internet search. Instead, he asks, “Why are you here, Sylvain?”

Sylvain sits down on the edge of the bed, easy and casual. “Uh, ‘cause you looked pretty upset, and I—”

“Not that,” Felix interrupts, frowning. “I mean… _here._ As my Servant. What’s your wish?”

It’s a question he’s clearly not anticipating, because Sylvain pauses. He pauses, and in that split second, he looks just a little lost, because for once he doesn’t know what to say and that’s _impossible_. They all have a wish; every Master that calls and every Servant that answers, they all have something they want bad enough to fight and kill for.

So what’s Sylvain’s?

“Hmm… to have a beautiful woman fall in love with me?”

(Liar.)

“Don’t give me that bullshit.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with an answer like that? You have to loosen up a little,” Sylvain laughs, pats Felix’s leg. “Now, you ready to start the day? Maybe we can pick up some girls before the other Servants are summoned.”

Felix doesn’t even know where to _start_ , with that. (Sylvain didn’t even answer his question.) “...It’s barely 6 in the morning.”

Sylvain tilts his head. “Yeah…? Oh.” Yeah. “Ohh.” Yep. At least he has the decency to look sheepish. “Sorry. I just thought you’d be a morning person.”

(Or, _sorry, but the Felix I knew was an early riser, so I thought you would be, too._ Something like that, right? 

Felix thinks to ask. Sylvain smiles, and he decides against it.)

“...Whatever,” Felix huffs, and nudges at Sylvain until the Servant takes the cue to stand up. He untangles himself from his blankets and runs a hand through his hair, somehow feeling _more_ exhausted than he was when he went to sleep. Sylvain follows him when he gets out to walk around, stopping only when Felix heads inside the bathroom to wash up.

“Did you want me to make you something to eat?” Sylvain asks.

Felix has a mouth full of toothpaste when he answers, “No.”

Sylvain grins wide. “Not even tea and a little snack? It’s no wonder you’re so skinny, Felix—”

“I’m going for a run,” Felix tries to say, but it comes out muffled and difficult to understand. Somehow, Sylvain gets what he means anyway.

“Okay, okay. Let’s get something to eat _after_ your run, then. We can hit up a coffeeshop, maybe chat up the baristas…”

 _Ugh._ Back to this? It’s almost as if Sylvain forgets that he’s supposed to be some philanderer from countless generations ago, until he remembers that’s exactly what he is. (Or—what people say he is. What _Sylvain_ says he is, even though Felix remembers the Sylvain who talked about his brother with that awful, sad look on his face, the Sylvain who fought against Sreng and the Empire and his friends because he couldn’t see the point in being anything other than what he was born and bred to be.)

Sylvain’s still talking, by the time Felix finishes his short morning routine. “...clothes. What do you say?”

“What?”

Sylvain sighs, dramatic and deep. “You weren’t listening at all, were you?”

“You weren’t saying anything important,” Felix returns. When he goes back to his room to change, Sylvain follows him yet again, not unlike a dog vying for attention.

“I was _saying_ , you should get me clothes. Unless you don’t mind me walking around in my uniform; _I_ wouldn’t mind having the ladies look my way.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Just don’t be visible at all. Appear only when I call on you.”

“But how am I supposed to—”

“You’re not,” Felix interrupts firmly, already knowing what he’s going to say.

Sylvain tries to look hurt. It doesn’t work, so he gives up with a groan. “Fine,” he says, giving up. “What are our plans for today, then? Besides the morning run.”

“I have to visit someone,” Felix answers. “But afterwards, I’m going to hunt down the other Masters. The faster I get this war over with, the better.”

“ _Then_ the cafe.”

“No.”

“Stingy,” Sylvain laments, but dutifully dissipates by the time Felix is tying up his shoelaces. “It’d be good for you too, you know. I mean, I’m not complaining about your place, but it _could_ do with a woman’s touch…”

It’s a little jarring, having Sylvain’s voice echo so clearly and cleanly in his mind. (It sounds… close. Not as if it’s being spoken through a human mouth with a human tongue, but like the words are echoing through the gaps in his bones, curling around the breath in his lungs. It isn’t suffocating or uncomfortable; just… new. Intimate, almost, except most of the things Sylvain says are annoying by nature.)

“I don’t need any clutter,” Felix grumbles back to him. At least _this_ is convenient, being able to just think instead of speaking out loud, and still have Sylvain understand. “Stop talking so much.”

As soon as he opens the door, his prayers are answered. Visually, it’s just a normal morning. There’s maybe half an hour left before the sun will rise, but there are a handful of birds that started their chirping and singing early. The occasional car passes by on the streets, and he can hear the whizzing of a bicycle or two as the people of his neighborhood begin to get their day started.

But Sylvain is quiet. No quip, no complaint, no meaningless conversation to fill in the silence. Felix locks the door behind him.

“What is it?” he asks. 

“You were right about the ‘no cafe’ thing, I guess,” Sylvain says, and Felix can almost _feel_ his smile. “Another Servant’s here. I can’t tell what class, but… they aren’t too far. A mile, maybe two.”

Felix’s breath leaves him all in one exhale. There’s a little tingling in his fingers, and he forgets all about the pinky promise he made to Annette about calling her first thing in the morning. 

This is it. This is the start of the war. (He still hasn’t replied to his father’s text, asking him if he’s well and prepared. The answer is obvious, anyway.)

“Hey,” Sylvain calls, almost gentle. “You don’t have to be nervous. Have a little faith in me!”

“I’m not nervous,” Felix snaps back. He walks at a brisk pace, even though he doesn’t know which direction to even go until Sylvain speaks up.

“Left here, just until you reach the light. It’s… huh. Near the river, where you summoned me.” Sylvain laughs. “Well, there goes our special, secret place.”

“It’s not very secret.”

“Still special though, right?”

“Hardly.”

“See, this is why you should eat breakfast! It’ll make you less grumpy.”

“Shut up, Sylvain.”

“Lancer,” Sylvain reminds. “My True Name’s an intimate little secret between us. Can’t be giving up too many things to the enemy, you know?”

Felix scoffs. “It won’t change anything. I don’t intend to lose.”

“Of course not,” Sylvain grins, and doesn’t comment when Felix’s hurried steps shift gradually into a run.

(He thinks about Glenn’s first battle. It hadn’t been easy, from what Felix saw of the aftermath: Kyphon, carrying his barely-conscious Master back to the Fraldarius estate.

 _He isn’t hurt,_ Kyphon had assured. _I’m afraid I may have overexerted him with how much mana I used._

But Glenn had been fine. Glenn awoke a day later with all the smugness of a victor, and he’d ruffled Felix’s hair. _What, you thought I’d lose?_ )

“You know,” Sylvain speaks up, “I’m really the last person that has any right to tell you this, but it’s a little risky to be running right towards your first fight if you’re distracted.”

Felix gives a little huff. “I’m not distracted.” But he is, a little—and Sylvain knows.

But the river’s coming into view, now, and he can see a slight looking boy with dark hair, crouched down on the grass where Felix had called upon his Heroic Spirit. There’s a girl with him, just as small, except her hair is a shocking, unnatural white. He doesn’t have to come too close to see that they’re _young_ , still. What are they, still in high school?

“...Fuck,” Sylvain breathes.

“What?”

Sylvain misses his chance to answer. The girl turns and sees him; a beat later, the boy snaps up to his feet to look over, too. Felix clenches his jaw for a brief moment before he approaches and sees that yes, they _are_ young. (And he remembers: _other Spirits, men, women, even children._ )

“...Are you—” the boy starts, but cuts himself short when Sylvain materializes just a step behind Felix.

—a Master, he likely wanted to ask, but this is answer enough.

The girl’s eyes, pink and pretty, widen. “You!” she exclaims, and Sylvain raises a hand in greeting.

“Hey, Lysithea. Long time no see, huh?”

(...Yeah. Maybe that _fuck_ was warranted.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to yell at me on twitter @silvergraced but Gently (tm) bc im soft


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhH thank you all for your v v v kind & sweet words!! ; v ; i always get really excited abt em lmao
> 
> anyway im v bad at writing anything even vaguely combat-related so im sorry in advance. i only have one braincell and all it knows how to do is say 'fuck' and also how to cry

Once, a very long time ago, Lysithea tells him that it’s impossible to know when he’s lying and when he’s speaking the truth. _You’ll end up with no friends,_ she warns, and Sylvain brushes it off with an easy laugh.

But then: Dimitri crumples. (He loses himself so wholly to vengeance that he becomes the beast he once feared, the monster he once detested. He doesn’t feel himself crush his crown beneath his feet.)

But then: Ingrid falls. (She takes arrows and spells meant for her king, but Dimitri doesn’t even notice. It’s her old friends-turned-enemies who lay her to rest with all the dignity she deserved.)

But then: Felix leaves. 

(“Come with me, Felix,” Sylvain begs. “We can see the end of this war together.”

“No,” Felix answers. “Unlike you, I know where I belong.”

And Sylvain thinks: _but you aren’t your brother._ He thinks: _don’t go._ He thinks: _turn around, please, just for one last look—_

—but Felix doesn’t. The next time they see each other is the last time, too, and Sylvain wonders if things would’ve been different if he’d been more honest from the start.)

A thousand years later, not much has changed.

The breeze is slow and cold by the river. The Lysithea of now and today, of new wars and old wishes, doesn’t take long to regain her composure.

“...We never found your body,” she says. It’s easy enough to hear the pity in her voice. Despite her good intentions, it makes him feel sick. “Bernadetta and I looked. Hubert thought you’d gone back to fight for Faerghus, but no one ever saw you again.”

It’s neither a pleasant nor a comfortable conversation to have. Sylvain steers it to where it needs to be instead by summoning his weapon. The Lance of Ruin glows an eerie, unsettling gold, and it makes Lysithea reflexively throw out an arm to warn her Master back.

“No one assumed that I’d just eloped with a beautiful villager I saved from the horrors of war?” Sylvain asks. His lips curl up as much as Lysithea’s curves down. “Wow. I thought that would be the first thing anyone thought of. Guess I’m not as notorious as you assumed, huh, Master?”

He glances over his shoulder to look at Felix, who looks like a fair cross between restless and annoyed. “Lancer—”

“Aw, no worries about secrets like that anymore,” Sylvain chuckles. “She already knows who I am. We’re the two traitors who ran away to fight beneath the Adrestian banner! Has a pretty catchy ring to it, right?”

Lysithea thins her lips. (She knows. She’s _known_. She might have joined Edelgard’s army of her own volition, but Sylvain had not.) “It’s nothing that matters anymore,” she says, and lifts her hands. Magic gathers and bends by her will, terrifying in its intensity and worse in her control over it all. 

(Every single one of them had wanted peace, but they were children of war and tragedy and circumstance. In the end, they know of battle too intimately to shy away from it now.)

“Sylvain,” she calls. “We were comrades, once—and I’ll admit… even if you were as frustrating and dishonest as you were in our days at the Academy, it was assuring to have you on the battlefield with me. But—”

“—now, we’re on opposite sides, and you can’t afford to lose,” Sylvain finishes for her. He spins the Lance easily, ever the picture of relaxation, but his muscles are coiled tight and he’s leaning just a bit into the soles of his feet. (And in that, he taunts: what will it be first, Lysithea? Luna Λ? Miasma Z? I’m ready for anything.) “I know. But the same applies to me, too—and my Master would kick my ass if I lost.”

“Your Master…” Lysithea trails off. “You mean F—” 

Glancing at Felix is her first mistake. Sylvain launches himself forward, quick on his feet even without his horse, and strikes with every intention to kill.

The Lance of Ruin doesn’t connect with soft, pliant flesh; it crashes instead against black, inky spikes that jut up from the ground, coiled tight with dark magic. 

“Get back, Cyril!” Lysithea orders, stumbling a step back when Sylvain continues his onslaught. More dark spikes shoot up to defend her, but another thrust from a gleaming lance breaks through them and pierces her shoulder. 

(The Lance of Ruin seems to shine ever brighter, tasting blood. What a wretched weapon.)

“Didn’t know that spell could be used like this,” Sylvain laughs, jerking himself back just in time to avoid a bolt of dark magic. The ground where he stood now burns an unnatural shade of purple, marked by smoke but not fire. “Just as brilliant as I remember. It makes me want to invite you out for a bite to eat, just like old times, except… well, you know.”

“Don’t get so cocky!” she snaps, just barely jumping away to evade the harsh crack of Sylvain’s lance. The dark, twisting energies of her counterspell shoot forth from her hands even before her feet touch the ground, but a swing of the Lance of Ruin redirects it right into the river. It implodes in a violent spray before a vortex twists underwater, mangling the riverbed and the soil guiding the water’s path.

Sylvain lets out a low whistle. “Scary.” 

“Hmph. I’m just getting started!”

But Sylvain is, too—and as they fight, slowly but surely, he begins claiming the advantage. He knows the intricacies of magic, even if its more in theory and less in battlefield practice; the difficult part comes with learning the way _Lysithea_ uses it, now that her spells are being flung _at_ him instead of _past_ him. But he learns fast because he always has, until every counterattack has her stepping back in confusion and frustration.. 

(See? It helps, sometimes—a lot of times—to act like you’re incompetent, all until you’re forced to reveal that you aren’t.)

“Sorry,” Sylvain says, and a part of him likes to think he means it. “But it looks like you’re outta luck.”

Lysithea’s on the ground with a broken leg, bleeding out of injuries that can’t close because Cyril doesn’t have enough mana left to help. Sylvain is the clear victor-to-be, if only because he can still stand. All it’ll take is a lance in her heart to conclude the battle, and to mark the first tragedy of a war with many more to come. (It’s unfortunate, but isn’t that the reality they’ve always known?)

Sylvain takes a step forward to claim his victory. Lysithea, to her credit and fault both, refuses to yield.

“Not yet!”

 _Not yet_ , is the buzzing cacophony in his head, because he’s ready to evade a spell that isn’t even aimed at him anymore. Sylvain sees the outline of the Crest of Gloucester hovering over Lysithea’s hands, and feels the gentle tremble of the earth beneath his feet at its activation. Is it a dirty move because she’s desperate to win? Because she’s old enough, scarred enough, _traumatized_ enough to know that morals and rules are useless on the battlefield? Or is it because she knows him, knows the way he has _always_ been, and anticipates Sylvain to take the blow meant for another?

She’s right. In both things, regardless of which it is, she’s right.

Sylvain looks to Felix, and he _runs._

(A thousand years, and he’s still the same person.)

Felix looks like he’s caught off-guard, but he’s quick to react. He’s already drawing sigils to erect a barrier, but it’s not going to be enough. He’s a decent Magi, but Lysithea is blessed by the Grail and the Goddess both; her magic is bound to break through like a hot knife.

(A thousand years, and he’s still as wretched and dishonest as they come.)

It’s a shot in the dark, but Sylvain flings his weapon the moment Lysithea casts her spell and uses the remaining momentum to knock Felix outside the dark, hazy circle of magic that appears beneath his feet. Lysithea reacts just as fast; she gathers enough magic again to defend herself, but the Lance of Ruin was never aimed at her to begin with.

(A thousand years, and he still gives as good as he gets.)

Sylvain doesn’t see if he’s successful or not before Hades Ω consumes him. Magic, concentrated and thick, shoots up to devour him in painful crashes and jerks, flames that burn cold and a tightness that sinks in like the fangs of a beast. Between the cracks of his dwindling cognizance, he hears someone scream his name. 

He hopes—the same way he’d hoped Felix would turn around, the same way he’d hoped Felix would stay, the same way he’d hoped Felix would say _yes, Sylvain, I remember_ —that it’s Felix calling for him. 

It is (but it isn’t), and the world fades at the end of a single, frayed string.

* * *

When Sylvain comes to, he feels nauseous and lightheaded. There’s prickling beneath his skin like his very flesh is aching to lay flat and his bones are just a summer’s breeze away from disintegrating into dust. 

But, more importantly: when he opens his eyes, he isn’t in a dark, endless room with a vacant stone throne, but in bed, beneath the covers, and with a cold, useless towel on his forehead. For a simple, broken second, it almost feels like he’s back at the Academy, waiting for Ingrid to push into room to chastise him for being so careless.

Then the world catches up— _he_ catches up—and the Academy is gone, Ingrid is dead, and—

“—you keep rejecting my mana, even in your sleep. What are you, suicidal _and_ stupid?”

“...Felix,” Sylvain murmurs, and for how simple the syllables are, they feel very, very heavy on his tongue. Was this what it’d felt like to be dehydrated, or hungover? “...Ugh. Man. I feel like—”

“Shit,” Felix finishes for him. His hands are bandaged, but he doesn’t seem to care that they’re being ruined when he takes the towel off Sylvain’s head, dunks it in a bowl of iced water he has besides him, and squeezes the excess out the cloth before folding it haphazardly back on his Servant’s skin. “I know. That’s your own damn fault.”

It feels unreal. Not all the discomforts that linger from surviving a spell he should’ve died by, but—this. Felix, sitting by his bedside. Felix—but not _Felix_ —taking care of him. (And this Felix, he’s a little younger. A little softer. He doesn’t have that little scar on his cheek from when Bernadetta had shot him, just seconds before he struck her down. 

Sylvain deserves him even less.)

“What happened?” he asks, and reaches up to swipe at the bead of water that trickles down his cheek. (Felix didn’t squeeze _enough_ of the water out, but—Goddess, if that isn’t cute.) It’s only then he realizes how hot his fingers feel, almost as if he’d spent days holding them out against an open flame.

“You killed him,” Felix answers simply, even though his posture shifts, and even though his throat tightens with the effort it takes to say those three words. (So: no, not simply. It isn’t _normal_ , Sylvain supposes, to see a boy be murdered in this day and age.) Felix eventually leans back in his seat and unwraps his soggy bandages, revealing two deep gashes on his palms. The blood has staunched, but the wounds look nasty, like whatever knife that had caused them had dug in too deep and trembled upon contact. “The boy, I mean.”

Cyril. Gone, too—but it’s not like Sylvain knew him particularly well enough to mourn that loss.

“Then who hurt you?” Sylvain demands. It’s difficult to extend his arm, but he manages to grab Felix’s wrist. (Slender. Soft bones. Softer skin. This one doesn’t have years of battle to harden them.)

“No one,” Felix dismisses, and jerks his wrist back. Sylvain’s hand falls easily, and it’s more an indication of his weakness than it is of any willingness to let go. “You were dying, and for whatever reason you didn’t even have any inkling of self-preservation to make use of my energy.”

So: he’d taken a knife and cut into his own skin, hoping the magic infused in his blood would be enough to make a difference.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sylvain frowns. His hand hangs uselessly off the edge of the bed. Felix, slightly annoyed, shoves it back beneath the covers. “What if they scar?”

Felix scoffs. “Why the hell is that even a concern?”

“Because—”

“It was a rhetorical question, dumbass,” he snaps, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Now that you’re awake, you can actually accept what I give you—and don’t pretend like you’re jittery about blood. As annoying as it is, I need you alive.”

He has a point, of course. Felix looks a little tired, doubtless because Sylvain hadn’t been cognizant enough to throttle his energy intake while he was out like a light. Even if Felix wanted to, he has very little to give and not nearly enough time to wait around until he does. Sylvain can count the number of choices they have on one hand.

Felix reaches for the knife that’s by the lamp, and Sylvain uses what strength he can muster to grab for him again.

“Or!” he says, and swallows thickly to ward off the itchy feeling in his throat, the dry heat that settles and forms an awful, embarrassing lump. “Or, we could—you know. Go with plan two.”

Felix looks annoyed at being grabbed again, and it shows. “Plan two?”

Sylvain tries to smile. He tries to wiggle his brows a little in an almost comedic gesture of suggestion, and when that doesn’t work, he dares to bring Felix’s hand close enough to press a kiss to his fingers. _That_ makes him pull away, and Sylvain chuckles. “Blood isn’t the only thing your magic’s infused with.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause between them. He can almost _feel_ the way Felix’s thoughts—or maybe his own—freeze, go blank, then rise all at once, crashing haphazardly together in a picture of pure chaos. Then, the verdict falls.

“...I’m _not_ having sex with you, Gautier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: haha 'fuck or die' is so dumb who even does that  
> also me: they have to fuck or die
> 
> add me on twitter (@silvergraced) i just wanna talk about sylvix until i perish


	5. Chapter 5

The look Sylvain gives him is—uncomfortable. (Heated. Intense. Sinful.)

Felix can feel the slow drag of Sylvain’s tongue on his skin, hot and slick, digging in just enough to balance perfectly between _too much_ and _not enough_. He thinks to shove—is _tempted_ to shove—but Sylvain is settled too comfortably between his legs, and the hand that rests on his thigh is warm and inviting. 

_Let me,_ it requests, and there’s something heavy—familiar—about the look in those brown eyes that leads Felix to acquiesce. 

“You’re taking too long,” Felix hisses, but it comes out quieter than he intends, softer than he means. He can feel the smile on Sylvain’s lips before he can see it, stained pretty and red with blood.

“I’m never rough unless I’m asked to be,” Sylvain answers with a wink. There’s something about the way he kisses the gash on Felix’s forearm that reads more like an oath of allegiance than something inherently seductive, and it’s so out of place, so _genuine_ , that Felix has to bite his tongue until the words he wants to say slot together the way they’re supposed to.

“...Whatever,” he mutters, which is definitely not what he had in mind. “Are you done yet? You’re like a fucking vampire.”

“Oh, I was done a while ago,” Sylvain admits with a laugh, and finally draws away to reach for the first aid kit by his side. His hand leaves Felix’s thigh, and the absence feels strangely cold—but Felix shifts his leg, and he tries very, very hard not to think about it. “But you just kept bleeding and bleeding! You should really eat some more greens, like brussel sprouts and asparagus. I heard that stuff helps with clotting blood.”

Felix scowls as he tries to wrench his arm away, but Sylvain keeps a steady hand on his wrist while he dabs the cut with alcohol wipes. It _stings_ in a different and wholly unpleasant way, and draws a quiet hiss through gritted teeth. Sylvain soothes him with a kiss to his knuckles, feather-light and exceedingly gentle. Felix stretches his fingers out to shoo him off, but Sylvain persists with a fond look in his eyes that doesn’t really have any right to be there.

“Told you we should’ve gone for the sex,” Sylvain says, and accepts the sharp look of annoyance he receives in response with a cheeky smile. He blows a cool stream of air to help with the burn of the alcohol, and makes quick work of applying the ointment and the bandages. “There, all done. That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

Felix looks down at his Servant’s handiwork, and fails to put together the unimpressed look he was originally going for. It’s neat. It’s more than neat, actually, and looks almost like a professional had done it. “...Tsk. What, were you a medic on the side?”

“Nah,” Sylvain dismisses with an easy wave of the hand. He remains close, even when it becomes a little inconvenient in his clean-up. “I just had lots of experience patching up cuts and stuff when I was a kid. Never really forgot how to do it since then, I guess.”

“So you were clumsy,” Felix deduces. “Unsurprising.”

Sylvain smiles, and rises to his feet with the first-aid kit in hand. “Yeah, something like that.” 

It’s an easy dismissal. There’s something about it that makes Felix a little uncomfortable, but Sylvain leaves to throw the trash away before he can ask. Quietly, Felix touches the bandages around his arm; quietly, he traces the path that Sylvain’s tongue had taken, and stubbornly fights against the unbidden urge to think beyond that.

“Hey, Master,” Sylvain calls from the kitchen, and it’s enough of a distraction. “You hungry? There’s not too much to work with here, but I’m pretty sure I can still whip something up.”

“No,” Felix answers, but Sylvain clearly hears that as _yes_ —or, more likely, chooses to ignore his answer—because it’s not even a full moment later that he hears rummaging. “Ugh…”

With considerable effort, Felix rises from his chair and leaves his room. His place isn’t big; even from the doorway, he can see Sylvain taking out what few ingredients are in the fridge, accepting some and making faces at the rest.

“I haven’t gone shopping in a while,” Felix says defensively.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Sylvain replies, throwing away some very old looking potatoes and picking the considerably less old tomatoes, garlic, and onions. “C’mon, sit with me while I cook! You still haven’t told me what happened, you know.”

Felix doesn’t hesitate, but he _does_ take his time in approaching. He leans against the counter with his arms crossed, and huffs when Sylvain looks at him from the corner of his eye with a smile. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“You used a command spell,” Sylvain notes, eying the faded red lines on Felix’s skin. Felix shoves his hand further in, hiding it from sight. “Well, guess that explains how I survived.”

“Of course,” Felix huffs. “I’m not letting your recklessness keep me from winning the war.”

Sylvain laughs. His smile is very, _very_ real, organic in a way that makes everything else seem one-dimensional. “Yeah,” he says. “I know, I know. You’re the same as always.”

“What do you mean?”

The sound of running water isn’t loud enough when Sylvain gets to washing the tomatoes. “Nothing. I just meant it sounded like a very… _you_ thing to say.”

That doesn’t make sense at all. There’s a hundred different ways he could have phrased it, but instead, Sylvain had said: _you’re the same as always._

(He wonders, briefly, if Sylvain looks at him and sees the _other_ Felix Fraldarius—the one in the history books, the one in the paintings, the one that had killed Sylvain in that cold, awful dream. He wonders if that’s why Sylvain seems so overly familiar at times, and he wonders—how a man could be so _foolish_ , holding that much affection for someone who would strike him down without hesitation.)

Sylvain sets the tomatoes aside, and sets a pot down on the stove top. “Anyway,” he says, “I’m gonna guess I didn’t miss my shot. Were you okay dealing with the body? I know it probably wasn’t easy for you, but—”

“My ancestor,” Felix interrupts, because this is an easier conversation to hold than reliving the grueling hours spent burying a teenaged kid’s body. (Sylvain asks, _were you okay_ —but he knows. He’s _known_ , from the moment he awoke and saw Felix’s hands, saw the chipped nails and the lingering tremors that wouldn’t _stop_ until Sylvain had covered them with his own.) “What was he to you?”

It’s a question that hangs in the air for much longer than it should. Sylvain recovers far too slowly; he’s stared at the olive oil for quite a while before he uncaps it and pours a generous amount into the pot.

“Kind of a hard question,” Sylvain answers, choosing—frustratingly—to play dumb. “You’ve got a whole lot of ancestors.”

“You know which one,” Felix replies, refusing to move when Sylvain tries to maneuver around him to grab a knife. “The one with my name.”

Sylvain is, oddly and again, gentle in the way he sets a hand on Felix’s hip, nudging him aside just enough so he can retrieve what he’s looking for. His touch lingers, almost hesitant to leave, before he returns to the tomatoes. “...He was a friend,” Sylvain answers, just after the first cut. “We grew up together for a while, but ended up on opposite sides of the war.”

It’s too… impersonal. Too detached, too distant. It’s the truth, but it’s not the _whole_ truth, and it invites—a strange, prickly sort of feeling on the back of his neck, the jumpy sort of electricity that glides just above his skin when he _knows_ something is there, just beyond his line of sight.

Felix stands up straight, uncomfortable. “You made some sort of promise.”

The next slice of the knife comes down too hard. The sound of the impact rings loudly in the silence. “...Yeah,” Sylvain acknowledges. “We were just kids, though. No one makes a promise when they’re not even ten years old and grows up to keep it.”

Felix expects him to sound bitter, but he doesn’t. Sylvain chops the tomatoes and the garlic, and looks away with tears in his eyes when he gets started on the onions. Felix scoffs and nudges him aside, taking over the task.

“Thanks,” Sylvain says, but it’s easy enough to dismiss.

“But you remembered it,” Felix continues, refusing to let the topic go. “I heard it in my dreams—your memories. You mentioned it, something about dying together.”

Yet: Felix clearly remembers the resignation that had settled over Sylvain like a shroud, just before the strike of a sharp, bloody sword. 

Sylvain remains quiet, and his efforts in turning on the stove top don’t take him long enough to count as a sufficient distraction. 

For a brief moment, Felix takes pity on him. “Sliced or diced?”

“Huh?”

“The onions,” Felix answers. “Do you want them sliced or diced?”

Sylvain pauses. “...Oh. Uh, diced. Thanks.”

“Hmph.” He dices them in short order. The pieces come out even and clean, and Sylvain smiles a little—that sad, distant sort of smile that Felix has seen only once or twice before, the one that makes him feel a little like his veins have twisted a little wrong somewhere beneath his skin—when he accepts them.

“You’re good with a knife,” Sylvain says, and adds the onions and garlic to the oiled up pan.

“I’ve had practice.”

“Kinky,” Sylvain returns, and seems to relax a little when Felix rolls his eyes. They continue in silence, Felix watching, Sylvain cooking. He brings out ingredients that Felix didn’t know he even had, and in just fifteen minutes, there’s a delicious-smelling tomato sauce simmering in the pot.

Sylvain turns the heat off and transfers the pot to another part of the stovetop. Cooking pasta is significantly less intensive, and it feels almost strange, to have silence exist for so long between them as the water comes to a boil. Felix is too stubborn to break it; Sylvain, either by weakness or strength, steps forward to do just that.

“...It was the first time since we’d met that I was gonna be gone for a while,” he says, leaning back against the counter. He stands too close, but Felix doesn’t make the effort to create distance. “I was decent enough with a lance, and I held my own just fine in practice matches with my father’s men. He decided it was time I finally came with him to one of our campaigns against the invading Srengi at our northern borders, and when I told Felix, he just started _bawling_. He was a real crybaby back then, you know, so it wasn't easy to get him to stop.”

Felix listens, attentive—but somewhere along the course of the story, it starts to feel less like Sylvain is there with him. His voice is clear, of course; he’s warm, and he’s solid, and Felix doesn’t even have to reach out to touch him. (But it’s the look in his eyes: distant, fond, and somber, all at once. He wanders to a memory that’s a thousand years past, not unlike a ghost who haunts as much, as _deeply_ , as he is haunted.)

“The kingdom considered Sreng to be full of violent barbarians, so you can just imagine what sort of shitty stories were told about ‘em to kids so they’d be too scared to leave the house at night. Felix was so convinced that I wasn’t gonna come back that he’d clung to me and refused to let go.” Sylvain smiles, and when he looks down, it’s to the memory of a boy who grew up too fast and too far away. “That’s when we made the promise—to stick together ‘til we died together.”

Quietly, Felix says, “But he killed you.”

The water boils almost violently. Sylvain’s eyes move over to watch the bubbles rise and pop.

“Yeah,” he replies softly, and something about it _aches_ in a deep, ancient way. “I guess he did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter (@silvergraced)  
> i hate sylvain jose gautier but GOD what i wouldnt give to be the cheap bimbo he dates for like a day and then forgets


	6. Chapter 6

Their meal is a relatively quiet one. Felix isn’t much for words beyond the initial compliment of the food, and Sylvain finds that, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have much of an appetite when he can still taste the metallic tang of Felix’s blood in the back of his throat. 

“Heroic Spirits don’t need to eat,” he’d told Felix instead, which is absolutely true as far as necessity goes. He still sits at the table though, giving the excuse that not even the most luxurious meals can possibly taste good when eaten alone.

(It’s kind of cute. This one has a different tell for when he’s starting to get irritated: less of a tightness in his jaw, more of a crease in his brow.)

“What?” Felix demands, finally looking up to meet his gaze. “Do you have to keep staring?”

_Yes,_ Sylvain thinks, because it’s been so, _so_ long, and having Felix here just reminds him of how much it’s ached this whole time. _Yes_ , he thinks again, because it’s easier to process the sight of something so mundane instead of what he remembers last, even if he’d deserved it, and even if he’d known, always, that it was going to happen. (It isn’t closure, but he’s always coped better with distractions, anyway.)

“It’s just in case you start choking,” Sylvain lies flawlessly. “I’m pretty good at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Kisses too, if you were wondering.”

Felix rolls his eyes. "I wasn't." The disgust comes a beat later, and it makes Sylvain smile. “You’re impossible,” comes the insult, except it’s not really much of one at all. Sylvain taps his fingers against the table, just to keep them busy enough to avoid reaching for Felix’s hand. 

“So,” Sylvain drawls, “How about, after you finish eating, we—“

There’s a brief sound, high pitched and clear, that interrupts him. And then another, and another, and a fourth, all in rapid succession. Felix pauses mid-bite, and his annoyance becomes immediately evident when he looks over to the coffee table where his phone is. A fifth notification, and he curses, “For fuck’s sake,” before he sets his fork down. 

Sylvain steals a bite while Felix goes to check his phone. Felix glances at him, almost looking accusatory, before he scrolls through his messages and whispers another curse.

“I know that look,” Sylvain says, leaning back in his seat. “Did you accidentally blow off your girlfriend?”

(And doesn’t that settle strangely in his chest? Just imagine: being able to hold Felix’s hand. Being able to kiss him. Being able to tuck his hair behind his ear. Being able to hold him at night, their bodies slotting perfectly together, and realizing that yeah, this is it; this is _love_.

It’s scary, how they start blending together every time he slips—this one, that one. The Felix with all the scars, the blood on his hands; the Felix that’s softer, less twisted and torn by the world.

He hopes the Felix he knows had a happy ending. He hopes that Felix he loved died old and happy with a hand to hold until the very end. He hopes one day it’ll stop feeling so awful every time he acknowledges that the hand won’t ever be his.)

“No,” Felix, this one, the real one, the _alive_ one, scoffs. Sylvain holds his tongue and keeps himself from asking for clarification. No about the blowing off, or the fact that there’s a girlfriend at all? “I just forgot to do something.” 

He’s texting. Sylvain can see his fingers tap-tap-tap on the screen, and he distracts himself with remembering how they’d felt on his palm—shaking, stiff, with all the dirt and dried blood scrubbed clean off his skin. (He regrets that. He regrets not helping, not being there. 

It was hard, wasn’t it, Felix? You always had such a soft heart.)

“Anything I can help with?” Sylvain asks. “If it’s a girl—“

“It is,” Felix affirms. It’s funny, how _heavy_ happiness can feel. “She wants to see you, so she’s coming over.”

Or: how that feeling just jumps up and disappears, like it was never really there in the first place. That’s funny too.

Sylvain grins. “Me? Gossiped about me to all your friends, did you? What did you say?”

Felix brings his phone with him when he returns back to the table. “I promised even before you were summoned. She would’ve wanted to see who I got stuck with, even if it wasn’t you.”

“Uh huh.” Right. “Don’t worry, I’ll sweep her right off her feet!”

“Don’t,” Felix warns. He’s probably one of the few people who could level a fork at someone and look threatening doing it. “If you want to keep your—“

“Woah, woah!” Sylvain raises his hands in surrender. “Geez, no need to be so scary! I was just kidding; I’ll be on my best behavior. After all, I’m already bound to you. We’re basically married. Magic-married.”

Felix swallows his food too soon. Sylvain pats him on the back to help it all go down.

(He remembers: being young. Trying not to shift in his seat, because there were bruises on his hip and he’d landed all wrong when Miklan had shoved him. Watching Felix talk, animated and bright, forgetting to chew his food. Dimitri had laughed, and Ingrid had reminded him to not speak with his mouth full. Felix had turned to him, tugging on his sleeve for any sort of agreement, and Sylvain had reached over to wipe at the mess on Felix’s face.)

“We’re not— you’re my _Servant_ ,” Felix bites out, and maybe he’s a little embarrassed. Maybe he’s a little mad. Maybe the thought of being married to Sylvain is just that repulsive. Maybe he could’ve gotten used to it, if they had more time. “And there’s no wedding band in the world that’s only good for three commands.”

_Two, now,_ Sylvain thinks, and lets his eyes wander to what remains of the sigil on Felix’s hand.

“Save the last one,” he says, and leans forward against the table. (He knows how this game works. There’s no explicit rule, but—he’s thought about it, and it’s the only logical conclusion.) “For the very end.”

“Then don’t put yourself in situations that’ll force me to use them until then,” Felix retorts, and finishes the last bite of his food. Sylvain gets the dish before Felix can pick it up, and takes it over to the sink. “I can wash them, idiot. You cooked.”

“Nah,” Sylvain dismisses. “You have to get ready for your lady friend to come over, don’t you?”

Felix frowns. “Why?”

Sylvain glances over his shoulder as he runs the plate under hot water. “...You kinda look like a mess. You can’t just greet a girl with your hair sticking out everywhere.”

A roll of amber eyes is answer enough. “She’s seen worse.”

“Oh? I never took you as the sort to kiss and tell.”

“What the hell are you going on about now?” 

“Don’t be sly, Fe.”

Felix makes a face at the nickname. Sylvain caches it too late, when it’s not feasible to really add the last syllable without sounding entirely unnatural. 

“Okay,” Sylvain decides instead, before Felix can open his mouth. “Let me just finish washing these, and I’ll fix up your hair. How about that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my hair,” Felix answers, graciously allowing the segue.

“You probably didn’t even sleep because you were too busy trying to take care of me,” Sylvain points out. Felix goes quiet, lips pressed thin, because they both know that it’s true. “So let me return the favor, okay? Let me take care of you, too.”

“I don’t need you to.”

“I know.” The water runs warm, up until he turns it off and dries the plate and utensils. “Let’s call it… getting even, then. Better?”

It is, slightly. He can tell because Felix crosses his arms but doesn’t offer any further argument, which is as good of a response he’ll ever get.

That’s how he finds himself with Felix nestled between his legs, hair loosened from its bun. Sylvain takes a slow breath and runs his fingers through the locks; it’s entirely self-indulgent, and something about it catches in his chest somewhere. It’s not like it’s new; he’s done this exact same thing to close the deal on plenty of women before, bringing their soft hair to his lips to smell the fragrant oils they’d applied. He doesn’t do that with Felix, but it makes him feel a little like he’s halfway to having an out of body experience anyway. 

(It’s not the same. _They’re_ not the same, but—)

“Get on with it,” Felix mutters, but his voice is soft in a way that makes Sylvain ache to hold him, even just once. (But, see—it’s never the fear of getting rejected that stops him. He knows, as he always has and always will, that there is something intrinsically _unlovable_ about the way he loves, the way he can _be_ loved. Felix will always deserve better.)

“Have you considered cutting your hair?” Sylvain asks. The last time he’d seen Felix, he had shorter hair. Bangs. He looked a little less like Glenn even though their eyes held the same look to them. _You look good,_ he thought to say a hundred years later. Is it awful of him to want that second chance now? 

Felix seems to consider it, for a moment. “No,” he finally answers, and holds up a hair tie in silent command. Sylvain waits for elaboration, but it doesn’t come. 

“Oh.” He takes the hair tie, but it hangs uselessly off his pinky as he plays with Felix’s hair. It’s not as soft as a woman’s, but it’s pleasant enough in his hands; it almost takes him back to his younger years in the Academy, when a day’s struggles had included convincing—and failing—to have Felix loosen his bun, just so he could stop thinking about how badly he wanted to kiss his best friend’s neck.

“...What are you doing?”

Sylvain looks. His fingers pause, and he realizes only then that he’s been idly tracing the slope of Felix’s neck.

“I’ve got a confession,” Sylvain blurts out, and gathers all of Felix’s hair in his hands. It’s not very subtle at all. “I can, uh. Kind of do a ponytail, but I’ve got no clue how to make it a bun.”

Felix glances back up at him, and he’s so beautiful and alive that it _hurts_. “Yet you offered to fix it?” The _idiot_ part goes unsaid, but Sylvain laughs all the same.

“Okay, you caught me. I just kinda wanted to play with your hair a little,” he admits, and carefully fits all of Felix’s hair through the loop of the hair tie. Right. He’s seen this done plenty of times before, and it certainly didn’t _look_ that hard. Another loop, then—

“Ow,” Felix hisses, “Are you trying to tie my hair, or tear it?”

This would be a good moment to admit that, okay, _kind of_ knowing how to tie a ponytail actually means he’s _kind of_ just watched other people do it. It also _kind of_ means he’s never done it before, so: yeah. Tying hair, tearing hair—it ends up being more or less the same thing.

“Sorry,” Sylvain apologizes through a grimace. “Wow. This is actually a little harder than I thought!”

“Ugh—give it here,” Felix says, and reaches back to swat Sylvain’s hand away. “This is how you do it, idiot.” It takes all of two seconds to end up with a ponytail, and it’d be a lie to say that Felix has never looked more beautiful because he always, always is.

_You look good._ That’s all Sylvain has to say. Instead:

“Hey, I could’ve done that eventually!”

“Eventually,” Felix echoes. 

Sylvain holds his breath, waiting for the moment Felix will get up to leave, but it doesn’t. Exhale, inhale, exhale—and Felix is still there. It’s tempting to lean in. It’s tempting to wrap his arms around Felix’s middle and pull him back. It’s tempting to do a lot of things, even if ultimately they all come right back around to end exactly like this: proximity, warmth, and that distant, one-sided familiarity that leaves him just unhappy enough to remember who Felix is and who he isn’t.

“...Does that friend of yours live far?” Sylvain asks. It’s the reminder that Felix needs to peel away, finally, to check his phone. He frowns, but it’s the sort of frown that comes when he’s _worried_ , not annoyed—even if he tries to make it look like it’s both.

“No,” Felix answers. “It shouldn’t take any longer than 15 minutes at most.”

Sylvain glances at the clock on the wall. It’s been double that amount of time, so he can understand the worry. 

“I’m guessing she’s not normally the type to be late,” he guesses, and receives a nod in return as Felix tries to call her. No answer. He tries again as Sylvain walks over to the window, as if he’ll see anything of use.

It’s night, with hardly a soul walking around on foot.

“I can go look for her, if you want,” Sylvain offers, turning back just in time to see Felix shove his phone in his pocket. “Just let me know what she looks like. Or just show me a picture, if you have one.”

“I’ll look for her,” Felix replies, as stubborn as always. “Stay here in case she comes by.”

Sylvain frowns. “No way; if you’re going to be like that, let me come with you. In case you forgot, there’s a _war_ going on—”

“I can handle myself.” He grabs his jacket, his keys—and Sylvain moves to stand in front of the door, the one thing blocking his path. Felix grits his teeth. “Move, Gautier.”

He doesn’t. Sylvain holds his ground, and it’ll take either a command spell or an agreement to get him to let Felix go. “I’m not leaving you.” Not again. “Either we go together, or you’re not going at all.”

Felix’s eyes burn, but time is precious when every fear of what’s unknown simmers just beneath the surface. Finally, he grinds out, “Fine. Now get out of my way.”

Sylvain breathes out in relief. “Great.”

He opens the door, then, and Felix steps forward to move past him. Sylvain pulls him back immediately, just in time to avoid a steel-tipped arrow.

It strikes the ground outside the apartment door.

“Inside!” Sylvain orders, and shoves Felix back. Cloth shifts into black metal, and the Lance of Ruin comes alive in his hands. 

“Wow,” comes a familiar voice, warm and inviting. “I impress even myself sometimes. I knew it was going to be you the moment I heard Lancer won the first battle.”

Sylvain’s eyes flit between every high perch available until he finally spots a streak of deep, Almyran gold and the uneasy glow of Failnaught. “Is that a compliment, Claude? You’ll make me blush.”

Claude grins, and to Sylvain’s surprise, he jumps down to get on more even ground. The Lance jitters, demanding blood; Sylvain bids it patience. “No need to look so tense. I’m not here to pick a fight.”

“You almost killed my Master,” Sylvain replies. There’s a threat there, beneath honeyed eyes; Claude sees it, and he welcomes it, because theirs has always been a game of subtlety and preparation. (See—it’s never really been about strategy the way others think, with weathered maps and little markers to represent soldiers. It’s been about knowing people, sometimes better than they know themselves, and figuring out how to make that knowledge into a weapon.)

“I knew you’d be fast enough, since it’s Felix,” Claude says, knowing smile and all. “Besides, if I didn’t make a fancy entrance like that, you two would’ve rushed right past me without even saying hello.”

“Maybe if you were a beautiful woman, it’d be easier to find you,” Sylvain returns. He’s not foolish enough to lower his guard, even if Claude is a familiar face—or rather, _because_ Claude is exactly that. “So? If you’re not here to fight, I can’t imagine you just wanted to swing by to catch up.”

Claude hums. He sets Failnaught at his back, and waits patiently while Sylvain’s gaze shoots to every possible hiding spot in search of assassins that aren’t there. “Relax—I came alone. My Master’s asleep, so it’s not like he’s here, either.”

Sylvain raises a brow. “...You _snuck out?_ For what?”

“To take in the sights?” Claude shrugs. It’s not very convincing, but _why_ he was roaming around isn’t as important as what he could’ve possibly found, to bring him to Felix’s doorstep. “Truth is, I came here because a little bird whispered about a runaway Berserker. Have you heard anything about that?”

No, of course not. But Claude wouldn’t come here just to share information like that if it wasn’t beneficial in some way. Briefly, Sylvain wonders if it’s a ploy—get him to take down Berserker, and kill him with a single, well-aimed arrow when he’s basking in his victory. (Hah, if only. That would be too easy to guess, and Claude has never been anything if not delightfully complicated in all the schemes and plots he concocts. 

This isn’t sitting down beneath the sun and playing board games until the ring of the dinner bell, but it could come close.)

“...Can’t say I have,” Sylvain admits. Slowly, he secures the Lance of Ruin to his back. “Why does it matter to you? Are you hunting Berserker down and needing an extra set of eyes?”

“Not quite,” Claude chuckles. “It’s only a matter of time before someone finds him, and _that’ll_ result in a mess all our Masters won’t be too happy about.”

“So, you’re asking for…?”

“Help,” Claude says, and glances past Sylvain to meet Felix’s eyes. “I want to save your king."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok but if anyone knows of a beta whos patient enough to have me shove these garbage chapters at them moving forward please uhhhhhhh lmk :')...  
> twitter (@silvergraced)


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